I Googled Dan Brown and Da Vinci code. Over seven and a half million sites are listed. And I bet some of the websites are by people who have actually read the book. There are book sales, the famous movie sale and big movie stars, and then an entire cottage industry of anti-Da Vince code books. That\’s what fascinates me the most, how all these books debunking a novel are selling like the devil.
But the idea of writing a book, a novel, and having it be such a huge cultural thing, something that gets so many up in arms. Is it the subject or the story? I don\’t think it\’s just the subject, although it\’s important. But lots of books are written about really controversial subjects. They don\’t tend to sell millions and millions of copies. That\’s the rub. How do you write a book that does that? Thing is, if what Mr. Brown says on his website is true, it\’s not like he sat down to write a cultural battle ground. It was a story, one that kept gnawing at him and he got to the point where he had to write it. Since he already had a couple of b-list thrillers out there, he could get someone to publish it.
But I\’m reading the book with my pen and highlighter. There\’s a lesson in there somewhere for commercial fiction writers. No one has accused Brown of being a literary high brow. But there hasn\’t been much Grisham-like critism either. (I think Grisham is a good storyteller, but he head hops so much, I get the concussions. Needless to say, I don\’t read his stuff unless necessary.) There has to be something in the book. Or an email address for an application to sell your soul.
The Story Factory 
There was some intrigue in his plot, but overall, literary wise, it seems to me to be another rather well done b-list novel. I had heard of the book, but what made me read it, was I got in trouble with my old high school class by relating some things I was reading in Christian History, by religious scholars, traditional ones, not sacreligious, etc. Someone in my class said I sound like the Da Vinci Code and some in my class really got up in arms with me for it.I thought, what in God\’s earth brought that on. then I read DaVinci Code, and I thought, I didn\’t say any of that stuff, though Brown did include a lot of history as history. Just got his facts wrong overall, though not entirely, though sort of who cares except that he meant for us to take it seriously and boy did we.I was very intrigued by it and what he said. Bored with the modern plot, but loved his so called historical, hysterical scenario. But was very intrigued, as when I read real live historical accounts.People are touchy and worshipping a jealous God, or sick of Him and those that worship Him. It is so in our culture, that it was very fascinating to most all one way or another. Blashemy or I told you so. The key was, he presented it as fact, and it was about the most intriguing topic you could come up with. It was as if he wasn\’t a b-writer.The real history is better though, and some is sacreligious, depending on how you look at things.
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